A Montreal native, she grew up on the fringes of the electronic music scene, attending Igloofest since she was 17, and now performing there for the second time with her collective TITS. In this interview, No Police, whose real name is Virginie Belliveau, talks about her beginnings in DJing, her collaborations with the Montreal collectives OCTOV and TITS, and her feminist/Flinta activism. Offering us her perspective as a DJ and Flinta event producer, she paints a nuanced and personal picture of the Montreal music industry, punctuated at times by unusual and negative moments, but also filled with love and positive connections. This interview with TITS is part of Igloofest’s second night (Friday, January 16), where representatives of the collective will take the Videotron stage for the evening.
No Police belongs to the category of “Covid DJs,” as they are nicknamed in the industry: although she had always been the one who mastered portable speakers and other tools at house parties with friends, it was during the pandemic that she bought her first mixing decks and began to cultivate her art. A raver who frequented Montreal’s trance and techno parties, her love of music and her obsession with “making others dance” led her to take the plunge.
“I’ve always been the one who wanted to take the lead, create playlists, organize songs. Ever since I started hosting parties at home in high school. And little by little, it became a habit: I went to a lot of raves in my early twenties.
Then the pandemic started, and I thought to myself, “This is the perfect time to start learning.” So, during the first week of lockdown, I bought some turntables, and that’s how it all began (…) I had been thinking about it for so long. Every time I went to a rave, I would say to myself, ‘I’d love to be able to convey what I feel when I’m in front of a DJ and do the same thing.’ I wanted to be able to build up the tension, create drops, and get the crowd going. I always imagined myself on the other side of the turntables. For me, it was really a dream, and it came true.”
A year in lockdown allowed him to learn, refine his musical preferences, practice on his own, and develop a whole network of contacts and friends, all determined by the same goal: to get Montreal dancing. Within Montreal’s electronic music scene, which resembles a “village,” he found a respectful and close-knit community that helped him land his first contracts.
“Very quickly, impatience for the end of lockdown set in. After a year of learning, I thought to myself, ‘The clubs and bars are still closed, but as soon as they reopen, I want to be able to perform my first concert at an event. ‘ So I started talking about it on social media. The first DJ I contacted was Bittercaress, who now lives in Europe. She’s a DJ who had been performing in Montreal for a long time, and I met her through a friend. And thanks to her, I met lots of other people.
“When events resumed, I went out a lot to meet people from Montreal’s fringe techno scene. And it happened pretty quickly. I met Corine and other friends (…) I feel like in Montreal, the scene is so small that you don’t really have a choice but to collaborate with others; it’s a bit like a small village. Everyone knows each other, and it’s quite familiar between DJs and promoters. There’s a bit of competition, but the atmosphere is very friendly. And I think the community is great. It would be great if it continued to evolve. These individuals who plan, encourage, stimulate me, and even offer me opportunities to express myself artistically give me a reason to persevere.”
Inspired by techno, trance, acid, and breakbeat genres, No Police has developed her own musical style based on her personal tastes, but also thanks to the bands she has worked with over the years, such as OCTOV, for whom she worked as marketing director for several years.
“When I first started going out, it wasn’t a collective, but rather events like Courage, Multicolore, that kind of thing. I used to go and see artists from the Anjuna Beats record label, Above & Beyond, Ben Balmer, Andrew Bayer, who were a bit more commercial. I hadn’t really gotten into the fringe scene at that point. But as soon as I started DJing, I quickly found my bearings. The first collective I noticed was OCTOV. They’ve been well established on the Montreal scene for almost 11 years.
“So, starting in 2021, if I’m not mistaken, I joined the OCTOV team. I was in charge of marketing, as a volunteer. This allowed me to deepen my knowledge of event production and everything that goes with it: organization, promotion, etc. I think that as a DJ, this is invaluable information. If you want to become a professional in this field, knowing what goes on behind the scenes allows you to appreciate the moments spent on stage even more, because you realize how much work has gone into getting there.”
Her experience at OCTOV left her with many fond memories and valuable professional skills. However, she decided to leave the company last year to join another emerging Montreal collective, TITS, whose activist values were more in line with her own desires.
“I am no longer part of the OCTOV team, but a little over a year ago, I joined the TITS collective. I wanted to join TITS mainly because of its mission to highlight Flinta artists. It’s a cause that is particularly close to my heart. I am part of this community. For me, it was a change of scenery that I needed, to join a group of friends who share the same political and activist values as me. (…) At TITS, we are quite spontaneous in organizing our calendar of events. It’s a little more in line with my life plans. And I’ve met so many new artists thanks to this project. And organizers too.”
Corine Pinel-Forgues, alias Cori (formerly known as Corinita), founded the TITS collective during the COVID-19 pandemic. This techno collective is committed to promoting the visibility of individuals who identify as FLINTA (a German acronym used in feminist and LGBTQ+ circles to include women, lesbians, intersex, non-binary, transgender, and agender people) in Montreal’s electronic music scene.
TITS stands out for its political convictions, but also for its meticulously organized events and recognizable visual identity. Who are these young women who run the company Run by girls in Montreal, as their Instagram description states? Cori, No Police, Meen Moreen, and formerly XIA. A strong group of FLINTA individuals with a thriving reputation.
We are really starting to make a name for ourselves in Montreal, and the team has evolved over the years. In a nutshell, TITS is a group of friends who share common goals and values: to highlight talented young artists from the flinta community. No matter what project we undertake, we always keep the main goal in mind. Historically, flinta artists have not always had the same standing as male artists.
“This isn’t a new phenomenon. The situation is improving, but not as quickly as we would like. There are some good examples to follow, such as all the Multicolore events. There is a real selection process involved in programming. If I take Piknic Electronik as an example, they achieved gender parity a few years ago, which is incredible, especially for a group or event of this scale. But there is still a lot of work to be done within the music scene.
“For me, the people at Flinta have so many wonderful things to say. And with TITS, we don’t hesitate to take a stand on social media, to support the feminist cause on Women’s Day, but also during election periods, for example. We’re all passionate about this issue, and we’re thrilled to be able to make a difference. We say to ourselves, ‘Ah! We share the same frustrations. We’re all in the same boat.”
While the public seems receptive to their cause—particularly given their growing popularity—there are still a few isolated cases within the music industry, apparently attached to values from the last century, that seem to question the collective’s values.
Recently, I received a private message on social media. We had a job opening, and we asked interested candidates to send us some information: name, description, links to social media accounts, and portfolio. I then received a message from someone I knew, a man, of course, who told us that the term “flinta” was discriminatory and excluded men… He criticized us for working towards equality but “discriminating against a group.” Honestly, I didn’t really respond; I was a little shocked to read that. I thought to myself that we weren’t speaking the same language. To me, this kind of reaction is very masculine. Our goal is to highlight Flinta artists and offer them opportunities to get noticed, rather than increasing the representation of men, who are already overrepresented.
Although there have been a few negative comments, which seem to stem more from a hidden form of misogyny than from objective analysis, TITS and No Police continue to grow, both collectively and individually, with ever greater and more ambitious goals.
“There are never bad ideas, there are never bad opportunities. We take the time to listen to each other and collaborate. Recently, we’ve started to be hired by other collectives or events to organize their programming. We no longer do all the logistics, setting up, taking down, etc. Our strength really lies more in curation, and that’s where we’re headed. Unfortunately, we’ve already lost money organizing events with TITS, and we don’t really want to take those risks anymore. We prefer to do curation or other things… It can be difficult at times to produce events in Montreal, as venue prices are often prohibitive for small collectives. But we have ambitions, even if they are more distant. We’ve talked about creating a label, for example, and forming a mini talent agency.
“But all of that will require other people on the team. (…) And I would definitely like to become a professional DJ and producer. So, eventually, I would like to no longer have a nine-to-five job outside of music. I also see myself potentially taking the lead at the agency, helping to develop the artists I’ve gotten to know over the years.”
Although she is busy with her marketing job, her DJ career, and her involvement in TITS, No Police remains above all a passionate lover of electronic music.
“I often go to raves, such as those organized by OCTOV, of course, Exposé noir, No Reiner, Virtualis. I really enjoy them. But I also go to more institutionalized events, such as those at SAT, Stereo, MTelus (for Mutek, more specifically) or formerly at the new establishment, which unfortunately closed its doors in 2024…”
Thanks to her talent and determination, No Police has made a name for herself in the local electronic music scene, fulfilling one of her dreams. Through DJing, she has made friends, crystallized her convictions, embarked on collective projects of varying scope, but has also encountered unusual situations, now memories, sometimes a little shocking, but also quite hilarious.
“This story ties in pretty well with our discussion about the place of men in the industry… So, I had a gig in Paris. It was my first time there. It was at an after-party, so I played from around 8 a.m. until 9:30 a.m…. Anyway, there were a few technical problems, but other than that, everything was going well. Except at one point, one of the organizers, who was probably drunk, came up to me in the booth and put his USB stick in my turntables… Naively, I wondered if he was coming to do a test, or I don’t know, something related to the technical problems… And then, I don’t know what got into him, but the guy started mixing… He started a track. He totally bypassed me (i.e., took control). And since he was the organizer, I felt so bad telling him, like, “Back off? Get out? What are you doing?” That had never happened to me before. I had to ask my videographer to talk to him. I was just beside myself, and at the same time completely baffled… Like, what the fuck?
Come see No Police, alongside her collective TITS, this Friday, January 16, 2026, on the small stage at Igloofest.
